The present invention relates to an electronic imaging apparatus and, more particularly, to an electronic imaging apparatus capable of transmission of image data thereby.
There has been developed an image information storing or recording apparatus, and/or, retrieving or reproducing apparatus, such as an electronic still camera or an electronic image data filing apparatus for storing or retrieving image data on or from an applied storage device or medium. Digital still cameras or electronic still cameras, DSC or SMC, (called DSC hereinafter) of conventional type generally employ solid state electronic imaging devices, such as CCD imagers, for photoelectric conversion to obtain a picture signal corresponding to objects intended to be picked-up or photographed. The picture signal issued from the imaging device is processed by the conventional process circuit for processing so as to obtain a video or TV signal of the fashion adaptive to be recorded or stored, and the processed signal is converted into the digital form representative of the image information intended. In the mentioned cameras, the image information is represented and conveyed in the form of digital data, and the data is stored on a semiconductor memory card as the storage device or medium applied.
The electronic imaging apparatus such as a DSC is available as commercial products for various applications. In such a DSC, a great number of still pictures or image data are stored or recorded in the form of a data file in the storage media such as memory cards or floppy disks. Therefore, the image data retrieval property determines the commercial value or utility value of the DSC.
A system for the transmission of the image information obtained by such an electronic imaging apparatus and the transmission and receipt of the information between the apparatus and the other apparatus is useful for effective communication. However, there has been no system capable of performing a such function with a simple structure.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,231,501 to Sakai discloses a still video apparatus that can accept an image signal from a sensor and store it on a magnetic disc, provide it to a video monitor as a composite video signal, or provide it to a personal computer as a digital bit stream. To accommodate these different formats, the Sakai system necessarily is relatively complicated. Moreover, the overall system complexity is actually higher, since the Sakai system offloads some of its processing requirements on peripheral devices. For example, the Sakai device simply digitized composite signals stored on the magnetic disc and supplies them to the personal computer, thereby relying on the personal computer to perform any necessary processing to convert the digitized composite video signal into a usable image format (e.g., PCX format, TIFF format, etc.).